[Bluesky Announces Series A to Grow Network of 13M+ Users]
An important announcement from Bluesky:
"We’re excited to announce that we’ve raised a $15 million Series A financing led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, SevenX, Amir Shevat of Darkmode, co-creator of Kubernetes Joe Beda, and others."
Bluesky is quick to point out that it will continue to not use blockchains or crypto, and that they will "not hyperfinancialize the social experience (through tokens, crypto trading, NFTs, etc.)".
Instead, this may be an indication that blockchain investors are interested in other forms of decentralization; Bluesky is talking about adding voluntary paths to revenue for creators, so there may be some way to make a return there. (I'd been wondering what the business model would be, in order to justify these funding rounds.)
Bluesky's CEO Jay Graber previously worked on ZCash, a cryptocurrency based on Bitcoin's codebase, so has some clout in that community, but this may have implications for other projects and companies that want to raise money. (Another investor is True Ventures, which previously heavily backed Automattic; those implications are also interesting.)
Another important note: Bluesky's had some flak in the past for not federating. But this announcement notes that there are over a thousand other personal data servers, which is a solid achievement.
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